Chapter 21

I’m not sure ... I don’t know ... as an author, I have found my characters have lives of their own. Lives that cross my own ... and sometimes subsume me. Chapter 20 was one of those seminal moments that leaves me unsure of who I am and whether or not I can continue writing. Karen has my heart. Much of her experience is my experience of fifty years ago. She holds my soul. I’m sure you have heard, “I answer to the voices in my head.” I do.

At the smell of coffee, she awakened in a huge featherbed. El Patrón, leaning against the door jam as another mentor had done a lifetime of years ago, held two cups and sipped from one.

“Oh, please,” she said.

He proffered the second cup and she leapt to her feet and padded across the room to the door. Bare footed and more ... or should that be less? Someone more crass would say she was naked. She was nude. And uncaring. She had never felt more beautiful in her 19 years ... truly, she had never been so.

El Patrón moved to a black bent-wire legged and stark white enameled soda shop table that folded in the middle. The table, with its matching soda shop pair of white seat and black bent-wire chairs, was the only decoration against a scarlet loosely woven burlap wall. Folded in half with the back half rising vertically against the scarlet wall, a green glass vase held sway in the center, its single red rose matching the wall. Placing the second cup away from the bay windows, El Patrón slid the white seated enameled chair and gestured. Karen nodded, quite gracefully, her firm upturned breasts bobbing with her acceptance, and seated her self.

“Fuck! That’s cold,” she said.

El Patrón chuckled and seated himself in the second chair. “I imagine so. That is the usual reaction.”

The sun shown brightly, casting his face in shadow. It also shined directly on her visage, mobile in denial of her calm. She was “in the spotlight.” Had she been younger or had she been older the light would have highlighted her imperfections. At 19 she had none ... on the surface. Her imperfections were “in the flesh,” afloat in her soul.

They began together.

“I need...” she said.

“You need...” he said.

They looked ... and tried again.

“I’m so...” she said.

“You are lonely...” he said.

“Consuelo...” she said.

“There was nothing to be done,” he said.

“There was nothing I could do,” she said.

“No one could have guessed,” he said.

“There was so much snow...” she said.

And truly, in hesitant manner, the frustration of, not doing nothing, she had done all she could ... it all came out. El Patrón admitted his insistence that the trailer be parked in the bleak pasture...

“Even the cows were smart enough to get out of the wind,” he said. “Since we missed thinking ahead, we shall think behind, move the trailer and I shall assign another ... occupant.”

“I couldn’t stand someone else in it,” she said. “I have money. You have men. Let us build another ... a house in the trees by the creek.”

“What of your project?”

“I was never so frustrated,” she said.

“One thing leads to another,” he said.

“It’s never as simple as you think,” she said.

“No plan of action survives the first bullet,” he said.

They stopped.

“Murphy’s Law,” they said.

“You should get dressed,” he said. “I may be old but I am a man.”

“I should get dressed,” she said, suddenly naked.

“We have a great deal to do,” they said.

“This time, we throw money at it,” they said.

The lights went on at The Spur. The sign in the door glass turned from Closed to OPEN. They were the first. At the L shaped counter, the farthest north pair of seats exist alone. The next stool is missing. They sat.

“Good morning, Bobby.”

“Morning, El Patrón. Karen. The usual?”

“Yes, please.”

“Karen?” Bobby slid plates on the counter.

She looked up.

“The band...” he hesitated.

“Yes?”

“The lead guitar player singer threw a hissyfit ... could ... would?” Bobby asked without asking.

“Sure ... a playlist?” She said, “I’ll need a guitar.”

“John Q at the Hotel.”

“El Patrón, when we’re finished ... the bank at Ten?”

“Yes.”

“Bobby? May I leave my car?”

“Put it on the street, you know what my parking is like.”

“El Patrón, I’ll be back.”

“I shall walk with you.”

The Hotel is but 2 blocks south of the Spur and it IS the middle of May.

Young John was sunning on the bench.

“El Patrón,” said John, springing to his feet. He motioned to the bench, “Please?”

“I have escorted this young lady ... Bobby...” There was nothing left to be said ... Bobby said it all. “I will sit and watch the girls. Although none so fair as present company.”

“Bobby said you have a guitar... ?” she said.

“Come in, come in. You are... ?”

“Karen...”

“Post ... Bobby speaks highly of you.”

The Hotel was just that ... a two story brick affair with a huge open first floor. Although open is but a word ... packed to the gills is a better description. The first floor had been ... in wilder times, a restaurant, a dancehall, a saloon, a 25 cent flop, a real-estate office, a cattle buyer payout and served other varied occupations ... none so long as the present Pawn Shop.